The Kansas Supreme Court released the following published decisions today:

Woodring pleaded no contest to a count of felony murder. Before sentencing, he moved to withdraw his plea, asserting that the State brought undue pressure on him to enter his plea when he was actually innocent of the crime. The Saline County District Court denied the motion, finding that Woodring had entered his plea freely, knowingly, and voluntarily. Justice Eric Rosen, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, affirmed the district court, noting that the facts supported guilt under an aiding and abetting theory and the mere existence of time pressure for deciding whether to go to trial is not necessarily so coercive as to compel a court to allow a defendant to withdraw a plea.

The Supreme Court vacated Brown's aggravated sodomy sentence and remanded his case to Brown County District Court for a second resentencing.

Brown was originally sentenced to 360 months' imprisonment after pleading guilty to the Jessica's Law crime. On appeal, a Court of Appeals panel vacated Brown's sentence because the district judge had not followed the proper procedure in imposing the sentence. At resentencing, the judge sentenced Brown to 372 months.

Brown appealed, arguing that the longer sentence violated the U.S. Constitution and caselaw. The Kansas Supreme Court agreed with Brown. The record of the resentencing demonstrated that Brown was punished for his successful exercise of his legal right to appeal.